with Brian Reinthaler

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Monthly Archives: January 2014

Minimalism, as a lifestyle concept, is something I have only recently begun to appreciate. I had heard the term before, but associated it more with an austere artistic style than simple living; like a black, 12-inch cube almost imperceptibly off center in a 10-by-10-foot white square. Art!

And even before I was drawn into the minimalist blogosphere (an attraction that was probably fated by the alignment of my evolving philosophies with the stories and tips offered up by bloggers like Leo Babauta (Zen Habits) and Joshua Becker (Becoming Minimalist)), my wife was ‘minimalizing’ our lives to great effect.

There ought to be an addendum to the old adage, “Don’t believe everything you read.” When reading mainstream media coverage of scientific studies, change “everything” to “anything.”

Case in point: ‘Cholesterol levels linked to early signs of Alzheimer’s in brain’, an article recently published by an NBC senior health reporter, heralds a new study that found a correlation between certain cholesterol levels and evidence of certain proteins in the brain, which are known to help form the plaques found in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.

While these findings may serve as the foundation for future inquiries into the possible causes of one of our most prolific killers, this is not how the NBC reporter chose to introduce her busy readers to the story (to be fair, “potential foundation for future inquiry found” does not make for a very splashy lede). Rather than honing her words to convey the subject of her report accurately, she led with the most common mistake a science reporter can make Continue reading →